Since I started tinkering and tinkering with networking equipment, my home lab has grown to the level of a mini data center. turning mini computers into servers. It brought quite a bit of extra noise to my office and while I can turn most of them offone thing i can’t do is my network equipment. And that’s the problem for me.
Every part of my office is optimized for noise levels, whether it’s quieter fans with acoustic signatures, noise-reducing foam, or other fixes. If the network rack stays here for easy access while running home lab experimentsthe same process must occur. As they are mostly 1U units, this means replacing the fans, as there isn’t much room to add noise dampening materials while maintaining airflow.
About this content: Noctua and Ubiquiti sent XDA hardware to use for this article. Neither company had any access to the content, nor did they see it before it was published.
Things You Don’t Realize About Rack Upgrading
Bringing the data center home also increases the noise level
I am in the process of migrating my home network to Ubiquiti’s hardware A hodgepodge of different pieces I use. Thankfully, most of the in-wall wiring was handled by the builders of this house, except they didn’t run a closet on the first floor, which would have been perfect for a network switch. But that’s a problem for another day.
The problem today is that I have a 12U rack space that is mostly filled with network switches, NAS, UPS, router, and a few other things that need airflow to stay cool. Now the 1U fans are noisy at times on both, though not on airflow. And I can’t deal with it. Excessive volume is more of a problem than actual volume, especially for my higher-pitched ANC headphones, which are difficult to filter through.
To be clear, the stock fans are fine and won’t be a problem if you don’t have the same sound sensitivity that I do. They are no different from the fans used by the rest of the industry and are suitable for the environment in which they are expected to be installed. Which is not next to my desk, but in the network cabinet. This is entirely a matter of my own, and perhaps it helps more to replace the fans if they go bad.
I have a soft spot for beige and brown
So it’s time to open up those sleek rack-mounted appliances and replace each fan the only brand that hasn’t let me down in ten years. This is Noctua, you probably noticed the clear colors of the fans below.
Figuring out which fans were needed was harder than it should have been, but thanks to the active Reddit community around Ubiquiti, I was able to hit the ground running and a large number of miniature fans soon came my way.
Changing fans was not as easy as it seems
Why is it always more difficult to separate equipment?
Most networking equipment isn’t exactly user-friendly, but the Unifi Dream Machine Pro Max was a bit easier to disassemble than most. To be honest, I feared the worst when I looked at the hard drive bays and saw the cooling fans buried in the bottom, but they were attached to the plastic vent that came out after removing four screws, which was a pleasant surprise.
The worst part was getting the Noctua fan cables back into the headers, as the arm around the cables was a little difficult, so I had to go inside the vent area. Since the header is not the normal type used on PC motherboards, the plug had to be cut a bit with a knife. But it worked and now my networking rigs have quieter fans and it’s worth the world to me when I’m sitting in a booth all day.
thank you r/Ubiquiti and Ubiquiti forumsbecause without them it would have been a much, much longer process. Almost every device that Ubiquiti releases has someone who needs to replace a fan, or wants to do what I did and replace them with quieter devices, and there are plenty of great pictures to help.
I wish quieter fans were an option on any electronics. I’ll happily pay extra to be quiet and not have to open up the hardware as soon as I get it to change fans. Again, it’s just about me. My space needs to be as quiet as possible otherwise I get very distracted and I’ve found that changing the fans is something that helps.
My network rack is still not silent, but close enough
I know my shelf will never be silent; The advantage of 1U and 2U devices means that only small fans can be used, and they must compensate by running faster. But I can still reduce the overall acoustic levels while changing the sound signature to a quality my ears can handle. I guess that means I need to wire the closet under the stairs sooner, so I can wheel it all in there and not have to hear it over the sound of the AC unit next to it. This is another day after my nails have recovered from this attempt.
